ART ANTIQUES IRELAND

Posts Tagged ‘Schiele’

The big art selling season gets underway in London next week with Impressionist and Mondern Art and the Art of the Surreal evening sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s on February 26 and 27 respectively.

Highlights at Sotheby’s include Monet’s Le Palais Ducal in Venice (£20-30 million) and Egon Schiele’s modernist vision of a Trieste fishing boat (£6-8 million) as well as three visually arresting paintings by Magritte as well as work by Kirchner, Chagall, Picasso, Rodin, Degas, Jean Arp and Man Ray.

Egon Schiele's world record painting entitled Houses with Laundry (Suburb II). (Click on image to enlarge).

There was a world auction record for Egon Schiele at Sotheby’s on June 22. His Häuser mit bunter Wäsche (Vorstadt II) / Houses with Laundry (Suburb II) made £24,681,250, almost double the previous auction record for the Austrian artist.

The painting, sold by the Leopold Museum in Vienna, was bought by an anonymous telephone bidder. Executed in 1914 at the height of Egon Schiele’s short career (he died in 1918 at the age of just 28), the painting is one of the most impressive of the artist’s few monumental cityscapes and is loosely based on motifs drawn from Krumau, the town known to have inspired some of his greatest works. It was this town in Southern Bohemia in which Schiele’s mother was born, and to which Schiele and his lover Valerie (Wally) Neuzil moved in 1911 in order to escape what they perceived as the claustrophobic atmosphere of Vienna.

Overall, the sale achieved £96,968,000, within the pre-sale estimate of £77 to £111 million. It was 91.4% sold by lot and 98.4% by value.Records were also set for Marc Chagall’sAu-Dessus de la ville, which made £1,833,250, a record for a work on paper by the artist and Tamara de Lempicka’s La Dormeuse of 1930 which made £4,073,250/$6,617,809, a US dollar record for the artist.

The June Impressionist & Modern Art sale at Sotheby’s made £14,622,250, bringing the total for the June series to £111,590,250.

Egon Schiele's Häuser mit bunter Wäsche, “Vorstadt” II is one of the most important oils by the Austrian artist ever to come to the market. (click on image to enlarge) UPDATE: SOLD FOR £24,681,250,

This 1914 cityscape, one of the most important oils by Egon Schiele ever to come to the market, will be a highlight of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art sale in London on June 22. Häuser mit bunter Wäsche, “Vorstadt” II – translated as Houses with colourful Laundry “Suburb” II – ranks among just a small number of significant cityscapes by Schiele remaining in private hands. It was acquired in the year it was painted by Schiele’s friend and patron Heinrich Böhler. It has been in the collection of the Leopold Museum in Vienna since 1952.

The Museum’s managing director Peter Weinhäupl said: “The Leopold Museum today is committed to affirming its position as the pre-eminent repository of Austrian Modern Art and the decision it has taken with this sale is a testament to this commitment. While this painting will be missed, the museum is fortunate to hold eight further Schiele cityscapes of superb quality in its collection.”

Schiele, who died in the great flu of 1918 aged 28, loosely based this painting on Krumau, the town in Southern Bohemia where his mother was born. He and his lover Walburga (Wally) Neuzil moved there in 1911, in order to escape what they perceived as the claustrophobic atmosphere of Vienna (ironically, they were soon driven out of the town by the residents, who strongly disapproved of their liberal lifestyle, and returned to the environs of Vienna a year later).

Häuser mit bunter Wäsche, “Vorstadt” II comes to the auction market for the first time with an estimate of £22-30 million.